The Italians have adopted a democratic approach to train travel, wherever possible ensuring that it is affordable to the many. Great if you're an Italian and know how to choose the cheapest trains, tickets etc and are familiar with less obvious rules of Italian train travel.
But if you've never travelled by train in Italy before it can seem chaotic and bewildering.
Hence these 10 Tips that will help avoid the pitfalls of Italian train travel and enable you to enjoy journey after journey, from one amazing destination to another!
1 - Avoid travelling in the summer
There are three primary reasons why the summer isn’t the best time of year to appreciate Italian train travel at its best:
1 - The trains that don’t have to be reserved can be full to bursting; particularly on the busiest routes; such as along the Mediterranean coast, down the central spine of Italy between Milan/Venice - Rome and in southern Italy/Sicily.2 - The majority of local and regional trains aren’t air-conditioned, so the overcrowding and outside temperature of 35 degrees (+) isn’t the most enticing of combinations.
3 - Those discounted advance tickets on the ’Freccia’ and IC express trains sell out fast, so finding the cheapest advertised prices can be a needle in a haystack scenario.
Also if you’ve opted for a slow train, so that you can make the most of the fantastic scenery, your chances of sitting by the window in a prime position seat can be as low as 1 in 10.
These factors apply also come into play all year round on Friday and Sunday evenings and on either side of festivals, religious holidays etc.
2 - Book tickets ahead if you can
Don't rush into booking 'Super Economy' tickets - know the restrictions/T&Cs that covers these tickets before clicking that 'buy' button. Question/answer No. 12 on ThereByTrain.com's train tickets FAQs has more info about this.
If you’re happy to forego the flexibility of being able to change your mind regarding your travel plans, the ‘super economy’ tickets offered by Trenitalia for travel on long distance express 'Freccia' and IC trains are one of the best travel bargains in all of Europe.
Less good news is that they tend to sell out weeks ahead, months ahead in the summer months, and can be particularly hard to track down on the most popular routes such as Venice/Venezia – Rome/Roma.
Better news is that the Tenitalia website is up there on the ‘easier train ticket booking sites to use list’, particularly once you’ve mastered the fact that you need to look for the city names in Italian - even when you’re on the English language version of the site.
More information about using the Trenitalia site is available HERE
3 - Always reserve on IC trains
The fact you don’t have to reserve seats on Italian IC trains seems like a big tick in the box for using them, particularly if you can’t be bothered with having to reserve on the ‘Freccia’ trains or want to skip paying any supplement/reservation fees.
Resist this temptation and make the effort to reserve! Here’s why this is a good idea…
The seats on the IC trains aren’t marked as reserved on the train - the only upside of this is that you can still make the reservation up to a few minutes before the train departs (if there are any seats left at all!)
The downside is that if you haven’t reserved on the Italian IC train you can easily find yourself in the following manic scenario:
1 - You find a seemingly available seat on the IC train, after all there’s nothing to tell you it’s been reserved.
2 - At the next station someone boards the train who has reserved the seat you’re already sitting in so you HAVE to move seats (staying put is not an option, you can be fined or thrown off the train)
3 - At the next station the pattern repeats itself, you have to move seats because somebody produces a reservation for where you are sitting. This can happen again and again, by the time you’ve got off the train you might have changed seats six times!
And that’s often a best case scenario. You can also easily find yourself in the situation below, particularly in the summer months:
1 - You can give up a seat because someone with a reservation claims it, and then find that there are no more seats available on the train.
2 - In this scenario at each station you will then have to wait and then see if a seat becomes free AFTER the trains departs.
3 - Keep losing on the IC train seat lottery and you could be stood in the crowded corridor for five hours or more.
Italians know this, it’s why they make the reservations. Avoid thinking, ‘nobody else will bother’.
However, just because you have a reservation, don’t assume that you'll be always be able to sit in your assigned seat.
You could ask the conductor to move the heavily pregnant woman, or the man that looks like he’s 100. But they didn’t know you had reserved the seat.
If you don’t want a small crowd of impassioned Italians shouting at you for making the old or infirm move, then stepping back and letting them remain sitting in your seat, can be the lesser of two evils.
That’s assuming you know the Italian for , “Excuse me, I’m pretty sure you’re sitting in the seat that I have reserved, it says so on my ticket here”.
However, on balance that €3 reservation fee can be worth every last cent!
4 - Buy 1st class tickets for the REG trains
Some of the faster ‘Regionale’ REG trains have 1st class seats available.
You’ll know if the train does when you see the option on the ticket machine, or always ask if they do at the ticket office.
The difference between travelling 1st and 2nd class on these trains is often only a couple of €s.
This is one scenario in which paying extra for 1st class is worth every cent because it can make the difference between having a comfortable seat on the train and stood squashed in a corridor.
These 1st class tickets are a particularly good idea if you’ll be joining a crowded REG train in stations along the route, including the likes of Verona and Piacenza.
The gamble is that a 1st class ticket still won’t guarantee you a seat, these trains can’t be reserved so finding any seat can be a lottery, particularly in the summer.
REG trains with 1st class can usually be found on the routes between Milan/Millano and both Venice/Venezia and Bologna and on the Pisa – Roma/Roma route.
If you’re willing to save money by forsaking the IC and ‘Freccia trains’ and use these REG trains instead, then a one country Eurail or InterRail pass for Italy, is much less likely to be a money saver.
5 - If you can, join local/REG trains at stations at which they commence their journeys.
The faster ‘Interegionale’ REG trains can be prone to overcrowding and can’t be reserved so finding a seat can be a lottery.
But not neccessarily if you’re joining one of these trains at the first station it departs from.
If you arrive at the likes of Bologna, Firenze (S M.N.), Milano (Centrale), Roma (Termini) or Venezia (St Lucia) stations, a minimum of 20 mins before departure, you should be able to find a seat on a non-reservable REG train.
If you time it right when making a journey (in either direction) such as;
Bologna – Milano;
Bologna – Venezia;
Firenze – Roma or
Milano – Venezia
using these REG trains can save the bother of having to make reservations on the ‘Freccia’ (or IC) trains
The journey times are often only 20-30 mins slower in comparison to the express (IC) trains, but what you lose in time saving, you can gain in stress saving.
If you're planning to travel around Italy by local trains in the summer, because you want to be wowed by the most scenic railway routes in Italy, then obviously you want to be by the window on the train..
However. in the summer, if you don't join a local train at the station where it commences its journey, your chances of finding a window seat on a once-in-a-lifetime journey can be as low as 1 in 5.
It seems a tad bonkers, but you can massively increasing your chances of seeing what you've come (a long distance) to see, by initially setting off in the opposite direction. Travel back down the line to the station at which the crowded train started its journey and board it there.
If you find yourself having to wait between trains, seeking out a café to while away the time is no hardship.
Return to the station 30mins (ish) before the train back down the line departs and you can bag that window seat!
6 - Work out your departure times before heading to the station.
Yes this is easier said than done, but if you can access an internet connection you can enter the name of the station that you will be departing from on the D-Bahn website (and no it has no direct connection to Italian railways, but trust us on this one).
Working out the departure times of Italian trains can make a difference if you’re trying to save money.
Aside from the commuter routes in the main cities, a general rule in Italy, is ‘the more expensive a train is, the more likely it is to operate more frequently’.
On the busiest ‘Freccia’ routes the trains operate at least hourly during the day, but those REG trains that we recommend above only operate every two hours.
When choosing between ‘Freccia’ and IC trains is apparently an option, the more expensive ‘Freccia’ trains can be up to 10x more frequent than the IC trains.
On some IC routes there are only one or two trains per day.
Italian station waiting rooms are often full of people who didn’t release that the train with the cheapest ticket options, isn’t departing for another two hours.
Try to time it, so that when you arrive at the station and discover that all the discounted tickets for the ‘Freccia’ trains have sold out, you won’t have too long to wait for the train that is less than half the cost!
Also local trains away from the big cities can operate to a sparse timetable, there can be gaps of more than 4 hours between trains on some rural lines, particularly in southern Italy.
7 - Make use of the Trenitalia ticket machines at stations.
No ticket booking machine is ever perfect, but Trenitalia’s machines at stations are amongst the easiest we’ve used.
The English language option presents the information you need in a way that you don’t need a degree in ICT to comprehend.
It’s particularly easy to work out the different prices/ticket options for your journey and to choose the train that meets your budget.
Using the machines can save (a lot) of queuing time at station booking offices.
They also sell reservations separate to tickets and rail pass users can also obtain supplements/reservations from them.
If you can’t find your destination on a Trenitalia machine, it may because your destination isn’t served by trains operated by Trenitalia. This is often the case for local train journeys around Milan including trains to/from Malpensa Airport.
8 - Check your train ticket covers the route you will be taking.
This can be a tricky concept to grasp, but it can catch out unwary travellers – including some friends of mine, who insisted that I include it as one of the tips!
Imagine this scenario:
- You’ve a ticket for the REG train from Rome/Roma to Pisa.
- It doesn’t have a seat reservation so you think you can use it on any train.
- But you just miss the direct train to Pisa.
- So you look at the departure board and see that there is a REG train to Florence/Firenze departing in 20 mins*.
- You think ‘why don’t we catch that REG train to Firenze and then another train from there to Pisa, it will be quicker than hanging around in Roma (Termini) for two hours waiting for the next REG train to Pisa.
Your ticket will only be valid on the direct train to Pisa and not for the trains via Florence/Firenze.
It’s not that obvious, but train tickets in Italy are route specific.
The scenario that tripped up my friends was travelling by train between Udine and Venezia/Venice.
Trains between these two cities travel on two routes, a shorter direct route and a longer route via Trieste.
The ticket they had was only valid for the shorter route, but without even realising that there were two options, they boarded a train that was travelling via Trieste.
They therefore then had to pay extra for the ticket once they were on the train - hence feeling ripped off and vowing to ‘never travel on an Italian train ever again!
9 - Don’t let the graffiti put you off!
OK we may now be heading into stating the obvious territory, but many Italian trains can be covered in graffiti on the outside, but are clean and comfortable on the inside.
You’re very unlikely to actually encounter the gang of teenagers, who have been busy with the spray cans of paint, on the train itself!
10 - Don’t be too hasty in dismissing the 'Freccia' high speed trains from your travel plans.
IF you can find it online, a $29 2nd class ‘Super Economy’ ticket on a ‘Freccia’ train from Milan or Venice to Rome is up there amongst Europe’s best travel bargains - a journey of more than three hours on a state of the art high speed train, for less than the cost of a black taxi cab ride from Heathrow Airport to central London!
The cheapest tickets for ‘Freccia bianca/gento/rossa’ trains are cheaper than a standard ticket price on the slower IC trains AND tickets for a Freccia train include the reservation fee.
Therefore if you look far enough ahead (Freccia train tickets are available 3 months ahead of a travel date) and get lucky with finding a bargain fare, you can take can advantage of the multiple benefits of the Freccia trains:
- A guaranteed reserved seat throughout the journey, that you won’t be asked to give up and nobody can take away from you – sit back and relax
- Less overcrowding - go to/from your seat without having to navigate a mass of people
- Having more time to spend at your final destination - because you'll get there faster
- Air-conditioning that’s more likely to work
- Use the main city center stations (nearly always)
Once you’ve factored in the reservation fee for an alternative IC train, (see above why skipping it isn’t a good idea), the price difference is €6 (or less).
Arguably a small price to pay for a comparatively stress free journey with all the benefits outlined above.
Users of 1st class Eurail or InterRail passes should make the most of the ‘Freccia’ trains, the fact that they still pay the supplement at the €10 rate is one of the major benefits of opting for a 1st class pass.
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